The drama that I was in

This is the mail I wrote to my first teacher in theatre arts, Mounesh Badiger. He directed a play for us in 2013 summer workshop at Neenasam Heggodu. Working with him filled me with greater inspiration to opt for 1 year diploma(2013-14) at Neenasam later. I also was a part of Neenasam Tirugata in 2014-15.

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Dear Sir,

Hope this mail finds you in good spirits and I also hope that the name Prajna hasn't yet masked itself up in the lower shelves of memories.

I wanted to share with you my experience of learning from you and I am more comfortable writing them out loud than speaking them with equal intensity. 

Never had I seen theatre in such a view. The line between the yogi and a true actor blurred so much that I hardly could feel when one will cross into another. Thanks to you Sir - for making it such a journey. A journey that can turn an actor into yogi, into water, into nothing so that he can be everything. 

Theatre - after learning from you, I realized is surely a trap. One can either get trapped in the numerous layers of illusion one after the another or it also can become the weapon to break the illusion that one is in. Theatre - you made me feel can also become a path for liberation. I felt it as a science to know the nature of mind. To know different minds and how they will react to different nature of situations. To enact that mind is no simply thing. To know that mind out of the limits of our own conditioning, out of the limits of our own likes and dislikes, out of the limits of our own physicality, out of the limits of our own MIND. It was like pushing all the limits inch by inch till we become limitless. Till our mind changes to the minds of the characters but with in the limits of mindfulness. Going beyond thoughts and emotions, yet being guided by both of them all along.  

When I came for the workshop, all I had in mind was to make some decent in-house productions with my kids and for them. But after being trained by you and working with you even for a single play, I realized this theatre itself can be made a way of education. I can think of no other way which can enhance concentration, multitasking, understanding of one's own nature, sensitivity, teamwork, spontaneity, creativity to such an extent as your Neenasam way of theatre training. You made me realize that holistic development is possible through theatre. 

The words you spoke did resonate with many aspects of mine. I was helpless but to listen to you intensely. Thanks for all those talks. 

I did tell my dad when I spoke to him on phone - regarding my experience at Ninasam that - I am feeling as if I am doing yoga (by that I do not mean asanas) all the time. Well he joked that he expects me to be levitating by the time I return. I am sorry that I disappointed him but I am very grateful that I got to learn under a teacher like you.

Prajna N S